THERE ARE 36,000 PEOPLE EVACUATED BECAUSE OF THE MAYON VOLCANO

Manila / More than 36,000 people have been evacuated due to the intense activity of the Mayon volcano in the eastern Philippines, which continues to emanate lava flows and threatens a major eruption in the coming days or weeks.

A total of 9,012 families composed of 36,499 individuals have been evacuated from the surroundings of the Mayon volcano since its first eruption occurred on Saturday, according to the latest report published on Thursday by the Civil Defence Office in the province of Albay, about 350 kilometres south-east from Manila.

In the last 24 hours, Mayon has continued to release lava flows that reach a distance of more than three kilometres from the crater, according to the report.

The authorities maintain the level of alert in 3 (critical) of a scale of 5, considering that volcano could start to erupt violently in a period of hours, days or weeks.

The activity of the volcano has also produced an earthquake and hundreds of rockslides, which has generated fear of repeating the tragic explosion in the Pinatubo in 1991, considered the second largest in the world in the twentieth century.

The eruption of that volcano in the north-west of Manila left some 850 dead and more than 1.3 million displaced, in addition to generating a global layer of sulphuric acid which caused damage to the atmosphere.

Experts from the Philippine seismological agency (PHIVOLCS) have ruled out however that Mayon can generate an eruption as powerful as that of the Pinatubo.

There are 23 active volcanoes in the Philippine archipelago, since it is based on an area of intense seismic activity registered within the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire“, which extends from the west coast of the American continent to New Zealand passing through Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. (January 18, 2018, EFE/Practica Español)